Hi, I'm Tom Seeley and I'm the managing editor of FOXSports.com. I'll be joining Fox Sports Net's Chris Rose and FOXSports.com contributor Peter Schrager as judges of the Next Great Sportswriter.

Together we'll be selecting the 16 bloggers who will move on to the final round of the contest, when the Next Great Sportswriter will be selected.

I'll try to spare you a lot of the legalese and small print that is contained on the official rules page (something you should all check out), and instead try to answer some of the more specific questions.

What will we be looking for?

Each of the judges will bring a different perspective to their evaluations (in that "Simon, Paula, Randy" kind of way ... but please don't try to figure out which one of us is which), but in general terms we will be looking for contributors that have unique voices, interesting insights and a passion for what they're writing about.

As managing editor, one of the ways I'll be evaluating the entrants is by asking, "Is this someone that I could see writing for FOXSports.com?" And I'll be the one assigning stories to the finalists and also eventually working with the winner on the stories that he or she will be writing for the site when this is over. 

What should I write about on my blog?

You can write about whatever you want that is somehow related to the world of sports. You can write about something very specific, such as a particular team. Or you can jump from topic to topic. You can even do some more of the lifestyle-type stuff that you might recognize from the writing of one of our judges, Peter Schrager, or someone like ESPN.com's Bill Simmons.

It was designed so that the final rounds take place during the NFL playoffs and run-up to the Super Bowl. So the final rounds will likely have a football aspect to them, but not exclusively, and not writing about football or the NFL will not affect your chances of becoming a finalist.

How important are grammar and spelling?

Simply put, they're important. We have copy editors whose job is to correct this in writers' work, but the editors won't be part of this until after a winner is selected and that person becomes a contributor to FOXSports.com. So in the meantime, all spelling and grammar are the responsibility of the writers.

Does this mean that a typo or a misspelled word on one of your posts will hurt your chances? No. But a writer whose posts are riddled with them will certainly not find favor with the judges.

When will my blog be judged?

With thousands of entrants already, we have quite a job ahead of us. But it's one we're looking forward to. Each blog will be viewed at least once by one of the judges during the course of the entry period.

We look at the blog postings everyday, so the more postings you have on your blog the more likely it is to be viewed multiple times. But we will not be re-evaluating your blog with every new posting. One thing we'll be looking at before we announce the finalists is the overall "body of work" on your blog, but that doesn't mean a blog with 25 so-so postings will curry more favor than one with five good ones. 

I'll leave it at that for now and hope that at least answers some questions you have.

If you have additional questions, please comment here and we'll try to answer them as best we can. We won't be able to answer everyone's specific questions, but we'll do our best.

And thanks to everyone for participating. We're very excited about introducing blogs to FOXSports.com and the community that it's creating, and none of that would be possible without the people who are contributing.

-Tom